Reflections on Chapters 5 and 6

After a break of several weeks, whereupon the intention of blogging all thoughts regarding the reading group’s assigned chapters was slowed due to the desire to digest as much of the full text as possible, the Reading Group reconvened to discuss chapters 5 and 6 of Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter (2010). Prior to the considerable amount of time spent discussing the intricacies of chapter 5, a brief discussion regarding issues that had once before come to our attention and seemed pressingly important for the ensuing debate emerged. Sadly, with the afternoon drawing to a close, this left only a small space of time to consider chapter 6 which I’m sure will be revisited next week.
Following the formula set out by Mark Jackson in his summary of our previous reflections, below I set out some of the key questions and points that have enlivened our discussions.
1) Prior to getting stuck into the chapter itself, a question that had previously provoked thought, as noted on Mark’s blog, is the extent to which anthropomorphism plays a central role in Bennett’s notion of vibrant matter. To what end is it necessary to anthropomorphise matter as opposed to zoomorphising humans and matter? Further, are we dwelling on this term too much? Should we be looking at it more as a thought experiment than a literal notion?
2) This led to further discussion regarding the need for such a term and the questioning of whether or not it is the case that anyone considers matter to be inert and inactive. If not, then is there a need to anthropomorphise matter? Perhaps there is need so that we, as humans, might look at not matter differently but ourselves differently.
3) Following this line of thought, the question was posed as to whether or not we can ever totally escape from the distinction that is ‘the human’. This question was revisited, with more reference to the text as will be shown below, further into our discussions.
4) Moving into the chapters themselves, the notion of Bildungstrieb was discussed at length and the way in which Bennett takes a broadly sympathetic view of Kant’s gesture “toward an impersonal, ahistorical agency, an impetus that ‘drives’ men on” (VM p.69) whilst condemning his inability to take this far enough towards matter itself, something that Driesch and Bergson make progress in.
5) Entelechy (including its pronunciation) was the topic that sparked the most debate amongst the group:
a. Is entelechy, “the non-mechanical agent responsible for the phenomena of life” (Driesch as quoted in VM p.71), another term for the soul without using the term ‘soul’? Would it be possible to think ‘soul’ in a purely physical manner, a purely physical force-ness of things that might stem from the big bang? Permeating throughout such discussions is a shift from a politics imbued with the notion of a Messianic promise to a politics of immanence.
b. Is entelechy employed in VM to avoid a reductionist approach? If so, perhaps Barad’s use of quantum theory and the notion of vibrant matter are heading in the same direction.
c. Thinking through potentiality and immanence with respect to politics a little further, why does potentiality allow a redefinition of politics which permits it to encompass ecology? Is politics only human?
d. This said, can only humans have agency? Does there need to be choice in involved in agency? Is a volcano a different kind of actant to a human? Are there any dangers with a total flattening of agency?
e. Bennett’s comment regarding entelechy’s action of “deciding on the spot and in real time which of the many courses of development will in fact happen” (VM p.75) prompted further debate regarding the possibility of anthropomorphism.
f. It was concluded that both entelechy and élan vital hint at a gap, a problem, between matter and its action, but do not tell us how to close this gap.
6) Maria Fannin’s presence was missed as the question arose of how influential Driesch’s role as an embryologist was in his conception of entelechy.
7) In a brief look to chapter 6, the potential for the use of Hegel emerged, as a point that many had noted, with respect to the notion of history as that “supranatural process which [is]...unique and not yet finished in [its] uniqueness” (Driesch as quoted in VM p.83).
8) Finally, on a note that recalled our previous Reading Group text, the rather alarming ideas surrounding embryonic stem cells’ questionable existence prior to their extraction together with the ability of humans to create differentiation amongst cells and yet, “we can trigger this process, but we do not know what its own trigger is” (VM p.92), resonated, we felt, strongly of Barad’s notion of ‘phenomena,’ and the insinuation that nothing exists until we bring it into existence, in her book Meeting the Universe Halfway (2007).
Discourse on many other points emerged throughout the afternoon. I have endeavoured to summarise the main points that provoked the most discussion. Please do add any areas you feel are lacking or further thoughts on the above points...
Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway. (Durham: Duke UP)